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Lew Sees European Growth Efforts Falling Short as G-7 Meets

LONDON—U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said European policy makers are still falling short in efforts to revive their economy, intensifying pressure on them to further ease their budget-cutting.

“We feel very strongly there needs to be the right balance between austerity and growth,” Lew said in an interview on CNBC Television in London Friday. “Overall, Europe is going to need to do a little bit better. There’s room for progress.”

Europe’s recession is emerging as the main topic of discussion for Lew and fellow finance chiefs from the Group of Seven as they meet in the U.K. seeking new ways to rally lackluster global growth. The lobbying may be paying off, with French and German officials acknowledging to varying degrees a need to blunt their fiscal squeeze.

“We reject an austerity track, this dogma which slows growth,” French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio Friday. European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said today that “we can for the moment afford a smoother path of fiscal adjustment.”

In the biggest rhetorical shift, the German government is indicating acceptance that austerity can be overdone. Governments have earned “enough room to maneuver” to act, having reduced budget deficits and bond yields, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Thursday.

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Forcing the shift are signs the euro area’s slump is outlasting forecasts and driving unemployment to record levels at a time when growth in Japan and the U.S. is also below par.

“Our task is to nurture the recovery,” U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said before chairing the G7 meeting in Aylesbury, north of London. “We cannot take the global recovery for granted.”

Evidence has mounted in recent weeks that Europe is willing to cool the austerity drive that marked its response to the three-year debt crisis. France and Spain may be given two extra years to meet European Union deficit goals, while other nations, like the Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia, may get one additional year.

Lew’s call for Europe to do more echoes predecessor Timothy Geithner, who often used forums such as the G7 to press Europe to fix its debt and economic woes faster. The new Treasury chief, who took office in February, Friday used the U.S. as an example for Europe. He said that delaying reduction of budget deficit had left the U.S. with a stronger economy and leeway to restore fiscal order.

He also said he will lean on European policy makers to do more to fix credit markets to ensure easier financing for the small- and medium-sized businesses which often provide the bulk of hiring. The European Central Bank has said it’s searching for remedies.

With the yen weakening, Governor Haruhiko Kuroda sought to quell any criticism by saying the Bank of Japan isn’t targeting a currency level as it boosts bond-buying to hit a 2 per cent inflation target.

Osborne said he will use the meeting as “an opportunity to consider what more monetary activism can do to support the recovery, while ensuring medium-term inflation expectations remain anchored.”

Highlighting the euro zone’s economic weakness, unemployment reached 12.1 per cent in March, with a level of 26.7 per cent in Spain, according to the EU’s statistics agency. Greece Thursday reported 27 per cent unemployment in February.

The 17-nation euro-region economy has contracted for five quarters, and the recession probably extended into the first three months of this year, according to a Bloomberg News survey of 19 economists. The European Commission sees gross domestic product falling 0.4 per cent this year.

Not all in Europe are willing to dim the fiscal focus. “It’s about restoring confidence in the sustainability of public finances, and that’s one important precondition for sustainable growth,” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said Friday.

Some are continuing the course. Seeking to pull itself out of recession and a banking crisis without outside assistance, Slovenia this week offered an economic overhaul including a higher sales tax, a property levy and cuts to public-sector wages to help narrow its budget shortfall.

The G7 officials conclude their talks Saturday and may not release a formal communiqué.

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